


crushed

by lizardcookie



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, Marauders, jilytober, oblivious!James, shameless flirting!!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-01
Updated: 2019-10-01
Packaged: 2020-11-09 11:43:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,320
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20852873
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lizardcookie/pseuds/lizardcookie
Summary: Lily Evans finds her flirtations fall on ears which have refused to hear them, as James Potter has learned it's impossible for such a good friend of his to be thinking of him like that.





	crushed

**Author's Note:**

> whose ready for some stupid, idiot romancing championed by james potter

“Prongs,  _ listen-” _

“It’s just not funny, alright?”

“Who said I was being funny?” Sirius looked at him with surprise, the conversation going nowhere he expected it to.

“We’re friends.  _ Just _ friends.”

“Yeah,” Peter rolled his eyes. “Of course.”

James spared Peter a look of reproach and to his credit, looked right serious about it. “I mean it. Can’t you just drop it?”

“Drop what?” Sirius repeated, and to his credit, looked right serious about it as well. “I’m not kidding. Moony said so himself-”

“ _ That’s _ not comforting-”

“-and he wasn’t joking, either, for once! He said that  _ she  _ said that she-”

James stood up rather suddenly, knocking the Gryffindor table a bit as he did and jostling his cup of pumpkin juice while Sirius and Peter found themselves jostled as well. He shouldered his bag in finality, his look of reproach replaced with something that resembled actual annoyance. 

“I—  _ We _ worked really hard to get where we are now, which is what I said.  _ Friends.  _ I’m not going to ruin her time as Head Girl by having you two git start some bad joke about her fancying me just ‘cause you find it funny to rub in my face. Got it?” 

Peter and Sirius just looked at him, taken aback. 

“Merlin,” Sirius breathed out. “You’re really on it. I haven’t seen you this worked up since— oh, shite, Peter, what were we doing when he—“

“Oh! When we claimed—”

“Really? Was it then or was it-”

“No, no, remember, and then he-”

“Right, Evans in the broom closet, right.” Sirius paused, looking reflective. “Okay, Prongs, maybe in the past we pulled some pranks in poor taste but—”

“Right.” James grimaced a little before turning, telling them from over his shoulder. “I should get to the Pitch.”

Sirius threw a piece of bread at his back. “Practice isn’t for an hour, you bloody coward, come back and listen!”

James ignored that. Sirius simply grabbed another piece of bread, taking an angry bite and staring at James’ retreating figure. 

Peter, looking a bit crestfallen, turned back to Sirius. “We were only trying to help.”

He shook his head. “You can’t help stupid, Pete. And with her, he’s always been nothing but.”

____

This was the sort of evening James looked forward to, the sort with their belongings spread across one table in the Library, books and parchment and quills and candy wrappers claiming their little space, the perfect place for chatting beyond Pince’s usually sonar-accurate ears for noise. 

Merlin. If the others knew he looked forward to time in the  _ Library.  _ Though it’s not the Library he liked so much, per say, but evenings like this with her nose scrunched up in thought, her hair pulled back in a braid, her elbows propped unceremoniously on the table and her language more foul than he would have guessed her capable of expressing for school work.

“Merlin’s  _ tit _ ,” Lily muttered, flipping pages at such a pace that he knew she was just doing out of frustration, “This is ridiculous. She’s actively trying to kill me.”

“Give Vector more credit, Evans.” James said, amusement dancing through his tone. “If she wanted to off you, I’m sure she could have gotten a lot more creative than an essay on numbers.”

“That’s the brilliance of it, though,” she didn’t bother looking up at him from the next book she pulled at random from her stack. “No one would suspect a thing. She’ll get off scot-free and I’ll be six feet under, clutching the  _ T _ this blasted essay’s going to earn in my cold, cold hands.”

James gave a  _ tsk  _ in mock sympathy. “If it’s any comfort, I promise I’ll change the grade to an  _ O  _ so all the mourners can be properly impressed by you instead of just pitying.”

“How very chivalrous of you.”

“I try.” A pause. “Before it comes to a funeral, though, I may be able to help.”

Lily looked up, eagerly. “You mean you finished yours?”

James reached down, pulling out his rolled essay and plopping it proudly between them. “Last night. Couldn’t sleep. Thought it would knock me out.”

“You did Arithmancy to help you sleep?” 

He shrugged, not having any other defense.

Then she gave him a wide smile, one that reached her eyes. He really liked that smile. “I’m impressed. You’re very smart, you know that? Anyone who says you’re just some fit bloke isn’t doing you justice.”

“Who says that?”

She grinned even wider, eyes shining with her own brand of amusement. “Maybe just me, on occasion. But I promise I’ll start praising more than just your very good looks in the very near future.”

He hoped he wasn’t blushing, hoped the heat in his face wasn’t evident, because that would be a very telling reveal that sometimes he did still think about Lily Evans as potentially more than a friend. Hearing what he knew she meant as very friendly comments in any other light might make her stop saying them, and he’d like to hear her say he’s both brains and brawn more often.

“Alright,” was what he decided was a neutral acknowledgement. “Any part in particular giving you grief?”

“ _ Yes _ ,” Lily breathed out, knocking away the irrelevant textbooks from between the two of them, pulling up her scrap parchment. “This chart, here, the one for death probability-”

“Oh, that one I struggled with. Mine always came out predicting something way too soon-”

“-that’s what I’m getting, too! But then there’s this conversion factor here accounting for fate that I can’t-”

“Excuse me, James?”

Looking up from Lily’s essay, James realized that Cecilia Calloway must have been standing at their table for more than a moment waiting for them to notice. She gave him a warm smile, one hand tucking a blond curl behind her ear. 

“Oh! Hullo, Cecilia.”

“Hello,” she repeated, looking at him and not Lily. “Got a minute?” She asked, gesturing her head back like she wanted him to follow her. 

James stared back at her curiously, not moving. “What’s up?”

“Well, I’ve been struggling with this Potions assignment all evening,” Cecilia started, leaning down on the table towards James. “Obviously I’m usually a hat at Potions, but this whole nonsense of inventing our own brews is rather tricky, and I can’t figure out how to  _ start,  _ really…”

As Cecilia continued to lean towards him, animatedly explaining her difficulties with antidotes, James noticed Lily across from him acting rather strangely. Her eyes, pretty sights that they tended to be, were actually narrowed in a rather critical way at him as he took in Cecilia’s question.

“I heard you laughing and it hit me- who's better at Potions than me?  _ James.  _ So I’m really hoping you’ve got a spare moment to come sit with me, I have all my research right over there if you’d care to join.”

Next to him, he heard a  _ snap.  _ He thought it might just be Lily’s quill breaking in two from the white-knuckled clench he noticed she held it in. 

James had a suspicion that any answer he gave Cecilia would be the wrong one.

“Hey, Cecilia?” Lily asked sweetly, but James has heard her genuinely kind voice enough to know this one sounded a bit strained. More than strained. More like sour. “James and I are actually working on something super important right now. Would you mind asking someone else?”

Cecilia responded with the same sort of sickened sweetness, the smile she’d been giving to James hardening into something that was like a grimace when directed at Lily. “So sorry, Lily, I didn’t realize he must be tutoring you-- I just wanted his advice, considering he’s top of the class.”

“I’m actually top of Potions,” Lily corrected dully.

“That’s true!” James interjected, but he had a suspicion neither witch heard him as Lily continued.

“If you need help with such a simple concept as antidote brewing, Calloway, I suggest asking some Sixth Years since they’re going over that now,” Lily told her matter-of-factly before she said with some derision, “But I guess you can’t recall, since you spent all of last term ogling Avery from across the room.” 

Cecilia managed to shake off the insult with only a few owlish blinks before asking, “Do you have a problem, Evans?”

Lily fixed her with a winning smile. “Not one James can’t help me solve right now, but thanks for asking.”

“Hm,” Cecilia hummed in what sounded like discontent. “Is that right?”

“Er, yeah,” James said slowly, his eyes recovering from jumping from Lily to Cecilia in whatever spat they were having in front of him. “Sorry, Cecilia, we really were just getting started on something.”

“Oh, that’s no problem,” Cecilia said good-naturedly, though he noticed she was still giving Lily side glances as she said somewhat pointedly, “I don’t mind the challenge. Good luck, Evans, on whatever you need so much help with. It seems like you’ll need it. I’ll see you around, right, James?”

“Yeah, for sure,” James nodded. Lily didn’t take her eyes off Cecilia’s back as she meandered back around the shelves, out of sight. James didn’t take his eyes off Lily, trying to figure her out. 

“Did I miss something?” James asked cautiously.

“What?” She jumped a little, turning her attention back to him. When he narrowed his eyes in suspicion, she replaced the abashed look on her face with something more cool and casual.

“ _ Do  _ you have a problem with Calloway?”

“Who, Cecilia?” She asked innocently. James quipped his brow up, thinking that if she wanted to go into the resistance effort, she was going to have to learn how to cover her lies a lot better than this. “I don’t have a problem with her, beyond how I know she told all the seventh year Ravenclaws that she should have been Head Girl instead of me for the whole first month of school.”

James gave a dignified grunt. “I didn’t know she said that.”

“But that’s in the past. Why do you ask?” Lily eyes were suddenly sharp, roving over his face. “Why do you wanna know about Cecilia?”

“I don’t care about Cecilia,” James shook his head dismissively. “I care about why  _ you _ seem to care about her.”

Lily was quiet for a beat. Then, using a practiced nonchalant tone, she finally said, “She’s planning to ask you to Hogsmeade this weekend. Did you know that?”

“What?”

“Calloway. I heard her bragging about it the other night at dinner-- I was talking to Flitwick at the head of the table, see. And she seems pretty positive you’ll say yes to her, too.”

James snorted. “Calloway’s pretty positive about everything she thinks, but even more so when she’s dead wrong.”

“So you’d say no?” Lily asked quickly, seriously. “You wouldn’t want to go with Calloway?”

“Not particularly,” James said, trying to keep his voice even. He didn’t like where this was going, didn’t like the risky place she could be moving this conversation for him.

“Well, that’s good then,” Lily said primly, dragging her chart back in front of her. “Because I let her know you already have a date that day.”

“But I don’t!” He felt suddenly panicked, worried that Lily had heard a whole different rumor about someone else he doesn’t fancy, because the only girl he really likes--

No. Because the girl who is one of his very good friends is the only one he’d want to spend time with in Hogsmeade this weekend, but he wasn’t sure how to pose asking her to Hogsmeade in a friendly, friendly way to her. James sat up straight in his chair, continuing, “I haven’t asked anyone to Hogsmeade.”

“No date, then?” She asked with the same delicate nonchalant attitude. “Well, I daresay you’ll have one soon.” A beat, and then, “I’m free too, you know.” 

She was smiling at him sweetly, invitingly. James liked that smile. He didn’t let himself think that behind that smile was something more, because that’s not what friends think about each other. Friends look out for each other, like how she helped him avoid an awkward run-in with Calloway after their next class together by lying for him. He needed to be a friend for her if he wanted her in his life, and that’s really what James wanted above most everything else.

“Well, Evans,” he said softly, trying to hide the wistfulness he felt as he said the words. “Whoever does ask you is going to be one lucky bloke. And whoever doesn’t ask you is sure as hell an idiot.”

“Yeah,” Lily held his gaze, but the voltage of her dazzling smile fell, the light faded from her eyes, and something compelled her to look down rather quickly and pull the Arithmancy books back towards her. “Idiot sounds right.”

She tried to ignore how thick her voice sounded when she asked him, “Can we go back to the chart now?”

And if James heard how upset she was, he didn’t let on. He just helped her with her essay, because that’s what friends do. 

___

James didn’t exactly know what to do.

He did something familiar and safe. He got a detention. 

____

“I think I deserve this,” Lily said miserably, staring down into her Butterbeer, swirling the contents in thought. She looked up at Remus. “For being stubborn and rotten and being only  _ half _ right about the prat.” There was a long pause before she gently kicked his leg beneath the table. “Oi. This is when you say you disagree and I should go easy on myself.”

Remus didn’t bother to fake a look of pity for her. “I can’t say I disagree, or that I don’t find it amusing.”

“You’re rubbish at this,” she eyed him bitterly. “I thought you lot chatted like a pack of crows. I thought telling  _ you  _ was as good as telling  _ him. _ ”

“You know it’s funny,” he smirked, staring into the distance thoughtfully, “I seem to recall having this exact conversation with James just two years ago.”

“Oh, laugh it up,” she sighed. “Now I get to take the mickey from you instead of suffering in dignified silence.”

“Dignified?” Remus’ eyebrow raised up, his pale face holding a healthy glow from the winds that beat their cheeks on the way up to Hogsmeade. “Is that what this has been? If I have to hear you compliment James’ looks or practically throw yourself on him one more time--”

“Oh, don’t!” Lily moaned, covering her face as she blushed. “I’m mortified I even had to tell you, don’t make it worse. I just don’t know what else I can  _ do. _ ”

“Have you tried actually telling him?” Remus asked reasonably. “Instead of just me and Mary and making it obvious to everyone else but him?”

“I’ve tried!” She said, distressed. “I thought he would catch on! I thought I’ve made myself perfectly clear! If I tell him outright that I fancy him and he doesn’t anymore...”

“Impossible, just so you know.”

“Is it?” She asked, voice dejected. “Because Peter told me he was really clear on the ‘just friends’ bit. And he really, really doesn’t seem to be interested.”

Remus shrugged. “Then there’s only one way to find out. And please, Lily, try to do so within this century. I’ve now been on the receiving end of this whole affair for too many years. Kindly end my misery.”

“Hm,” Lily tutted, then looked up at him, patting his hand. “But you know what they say about misery and company. And speaking of company,” her eyes scanned the crowded pub, “where’s the rest of our little pity party?”

Remus checked his wizard’s watch. “Should be wrapping up detention about now, if they were smart about it.”

“Alright, then,” Lily downed her Butterbeer, standing. “This next round’s on me, as it’s the least I owe you. Do me a favor, though, will you?”

“I guess it rather depends on the favor.”

She gave another sigh, this one markedly more dramatic than her others. “When all this goes south, try to maintain some level of respect for me. I’ve certainly lost a lot for myself.”

Remus laughed, smiling back at her genuinely. “I’ll see what I can manage.”

Watching her make her way through the crowd, Remus shook his head, wondering how on earth two of the brightest people he knew could be so stupid about each other.

——

This was the sort of night James looked forward to, one spent tucked away in the corner of the Common Room as he and Lily worked away on rounds schedules and point calculations and whatever else got lopped onto their plates. Not for the first time this term, he wondered how exactly it came to be that the same boy who used to get in trouble just to catch a pretty prefect’s attention could be the same Head Boy helping the same pretty prefect keep order. 

Some order, at least. He wasn’t interested in stopping all nonsense and it turns out, neither was she. Turns out Lily had always just been better at not getting caught when she hexed Slytherins in the corridors or anyone else calling her names for that matter. James didn’t want to think about this particular discovery for too long, probably because when he did, it made him think very more-than-friendly, mostly inappropriate thoughts about her. 

He left Lily to double check his work on the rounds schedule. She still knew the Prefects better than he did and knew who couldn’t, or shouldn’t, work with who. She was dutifully cross referencing his work and he was tossing a Quaffle up while lying on his back on the couch, content with the evening. Just content. 

He felt her watching him. That was something funny about this term, feeling her eyes on him and having to remind himself that she was simply unaware of the fact that it felt like the way  _ he  _ used to stare at  _ her.  _ And true to his instincts, James turned his head, catching her watching him with her chin propped up in her hand, the chart abandoned. When he raised his eyebrow in question, she just smiled softly back at him. 

“You scrunch your nose when it comes down near your face, did you know?”

He smirked, feeling only a little pleased with himself. “And how long were you staring to notice that, Evans?”

“Oh, just long enough for you to remember me here.”

As if he was likely to forget her. He threw the ball back into the air, catching it. 

“Keep at it then,” she sighed dramatically. “I’ll just go back to these charts. At least watching your arms flex reminded me of why I love Quidditch so much.”

James dropped the Quaffle, taking a moment to take her in. The firelight really was doing wonders for her, dancing across her face in ways that emphasized how many angles he could see her from and still be fascinated.

But he couldn’t get himself distracted, because Lily had said rather confusing thing. Things that didn’t really make sense, given everything he knew about her. 

He thought it must just be him annoying her, and said as much.

“You, uh, want me to stop, then?”

“No, not at all,” Lily smiled sweetly. Wait. That didn’t look like sweetness, that’s more like— “But sometimes I do wonder why I was given hair the same color as a Quaffle if you still prefer the stupid ball over me. I can be a  _ lot _ more fun to play with.”

Coyness? Coquettishness? James desperately wracked his head for some sort of logical, friendly-like explanation for the way she was looking at him and the words that came out of her mouth, but his brain wasn’t exactly working. It was thinking about taking Lily up on her offer to forget about Quaffles

“I-- what?”

He must not have responded in the way she wanted, because the vixen-like smile faltered and fell and she turned her attention back to the chart in front of her. “Oh, it’s nothing.”

James sat up, setting the Quaffle down at his feet, staring at Lily Evans. Really looking at her in a way he had not let himself look this year for fear that he’d finally abandon his resolve to stop fancying her if he thought about her for too long. But now he allowed his eyes to trace over her face and maybe even the rest of her, because he’d like to figure her out. He’d like to figure out why she would be wearing that fitted jumper and those bell bottoms that really suited her at this late hour. Of course he knew them. Those bell bottoms were a sign of ill omen, of something he could only see and never enjoy, something he knew wasn’t for him. That is, she only ever wore them on dates to Hogsmeade, which obviously never included him.

He’d like to figure her out. He’d like to figure out what to do next, because his sportsman's instinct tells him he’s got the ball and it’s his play. But then again, maybe he’s not trying to figure anything out, maybe he just wanted to look at Lily Evans again and maybe imagine what it would be like to become less familiar with those bell bottoms and more familiar with what lies beneath, maybe he just wants to--

Without looking up from her work again, he heard her say in a rather bored voice, “It’d be a lot more effective to undress me with your hands rather than your eyes.”

Now,  _ that  _ certainly left little for interpretation. James felt understanding come upon him like a jolt down his spine, his eyes open wide, staring at her like seeing her for the first time in a long time. 

Which was when a lot of things started to add up. 

“What did you just say?” He sputtered in disbelief, both sure and unsure of what was happening all at once. “What was that?”

“What was what?” Lily asked, blinking at him confused. 

“What you just said.”

“What I—  _ oh,”  _ her cheeks turned more than a bit red as she seemed to just register what had come out of her mouth. “I’m sure what I meant was—“

“Oh my god,” James cut her off, staring at her, stopping her before she could backtrack. “Are you  _ flirting  _ with me?”

“Am I what?” Suddenly faced with the consequences of all of her past months of actions and investments, Lily Evans found it a bit hard to actually have her game noticed, to actually finally get a reaction from him. And from such a blatant, forward thing as _ begging him to rip her clothes off _ . She could hear the shock in his voice, read the surprised confusion on his face, but nothing else. She had no idea what he thought of it all. He was just staring at her with wide eyes behind his glasses, his mouth slightly agape.

But then James was standing, striding over to her, trapping her at the table in the corner with no escape. 

“You  _ are,”  _ he said in a way that made it seem like he was fascinated by it all. “Lily Evans. You’re  _ flirting  _ with me.”

“Well,” Her cheeks were  _ impossibly  _ red, and the smile she gave was sheepish. “I have been for the past few months. But thanks for finally noticing.”

James’ hand jumped up into his hair, as it was prone to do. The other one was propped on his hip, like he was standing before a newfangled curiosity. “Oh, Merlin. Oh,  _ Merlin.  _ This whole time?”

She felt the blush recede a bit, which was nice, because it made it easier to look at him properly again. She nodded, feeling a tentative grin start to take over her lips. “This whole time.”

“ _ Merlin,”  _ he breathed out again, a look of wonder on his face. 

But he still wasn’t doing anything. James just stood there, looking at her, and Lily hadn’t expected that. Hadn’t expected inaction. Something made her suddenly ashamed, realizing the fool she’d made of herself.

“Are you… are you okay with that? The flirting, that is,” Lily sputtered out, hoping beyond hope he couldn’t see her blush return in full, mortified force. “I can, um, lay off it if you’d like me to.”

“No!” James yelled, and that was when he finally came rushing up to her, dropping to his knees at the base of her chair, looking up at her with that same wonder from before. “No, don’t stop. Don’t  _ ever  _ stop.”

“Oh! Yes. That’s good,” The mortification receded, replaced with a small sort of thrill as she decided right then and there to see her plan through, “Because I like seeing you flustered.”

He laughed then, tossing his head back in a carefree, overjoyed way. She joined him, feeling any remaining tension ebb away, feeling good, feeling  _ right.  _ He stopped laughing, only to give her his full attention, positively beaming up at her. 

“I’m an idiot,” he said, that fact not bothering him in the least. She found it impossible not to match his smile’s ferocity. Found it impossible to stop her hand from reaching out to stick itself into his hair just like his always gets to do, running her fingers through it affectionately. 

“Would it make you feel better if I said it suits you?”

“Yes,” he nodded enthusiastically, shaking her arm up and down in the process. “It would, actually.”

“You’re an idiot,” Lily told him as her head dipped down slightly to come closer to his, as she ran her hand out his hair and down his face, angling her cheek just enough to be able to meet his lips coming closer and closer to hers. He ends up smiling into the kiss when she has enough time to say, "And it suits you," before they both forget to care about anything else.

**Author's Note:**

> and my justification for all of this is james and lily potter's stupid, idiot son harry james potter who CANNOT navigate flirting or attraction to save his LIFE (and i love him so much)
> 
> happy jilytober!


End file.
